Threw You The Obvious
by Kudra23
Summary: Draco takes a midnight stroll and encounters Harry. Songfic.


**Disclaimer: I own nothing in the universe created by JK Rowling. This story is strictly not-for-profit.**

The song is '3 Libras' by A Perfect Circle, lyrics by Maynard J. Keenon --- Apologies in advance for the fact that this song wasn't released until 2000, and technically the story takes place in 1997.

A/N: This story disregards HPB

Hogwarts' most infamous rivals since Salazar and Godric came face-to-face outside the Great Hall, flanked by the usual suspects. It was the first day back to their seventh, and final, year. Draco Malfoy scrutinized his nemesis from head to toe and smirked.

"Potter," he greeted with his most condescending sneer. "Kill many people this summer?" Might as well throw down the gauntlet, put the Golden Boy off his game from the start.

Harry gave him an unfathomable look for his troubles. "Thought I'd leave that to you," he said lightly. "Good holiday?" he inquired cordially, as though their interactions were habitually pleasant rather than habitually explosive.

The Slytherin Prince easily covered his flinch. "It was lovely, thanks." Eying Potter, he added, "And yours was… chock full of bondage fun?"

Harry tilted his head, causing his facial jewelry to glint. A slow, secretive smile crept across his features, emerald eyes even brighter for the kohl that surrounded them, paired with the mysterious disappearance of his trademark spectacles.

"Bondage fun," he repeated with obvious amusement. "I like that."

Draco was thrown, but he knew better than to let it show. He wasn't a Malfoy for nothing, and his poise was unbreakable. A well-placed Cruciatus by Lucius here and there in the course of his training had seen to that. His silvery-blond hair framed his face this year, and fell to just below his chin. Wrapping himself in the conviction that his façade was flawless, he turned his attention away from Potter's unnerving stare to address Granger and Weasel. They looked reassuringly the same, just older.

"And what do you think of Potter's new look?" he drawled. Pausing to let his gaze fall on his nemesis again, he added, "Is the poor Golden Boy tired of being fawned over and worshiped by everyone he meets?"

"I think he looks hot," Hermione said bluntly.

"Mione!" Ron protested, face going instantly purple with the force of his shock and jealousy.

She chuckled. "Oh, come off it, Ronald," she ordered. "Just because I'm your girlfriend doesn't mean I can't notice what a hottie Harry is. I'm sure you've noticed how good Lavender looks in those backless shirts she wears."

Draco scoffed, turning his attention back to the Boy Who Lived. "I'm sure it'll win you yet another article in the _**Prophet**_**, Potter, not to mention **_**Witch Weekly**_**. Well done."**

Harry's eyes burned into his own for a brief moment, and then he turned away, murmuring something that sounded like, "_**You don't see me at all**_**." **

His friends followed, thus ending their first confrontation of the year in a much less dramatic fashion than most would've predicted.

Draco watched his nemesis surreptitiously all through the welcoming feast, as was his customary habit. Usually, he spent the time cataloguing Potter's strengths and weaknesses, waiting to see how the latest, inevitable death had affected the Wizarding world's hero. No one outside Slytherin House wanted to admit that said hero had been fighting the war - that suddenly loomed over all of them - for _**years**_** now. When it came to the constant stream of rumors running rampant about the Boy Wonder, Draco was an expert at separating fact from fiction.**

Potter looked tired and thin tonight; then again, he always came back to Hogwarts looking tired and thin. Draco had a feeling that his Golden Boy status acted like a glamour, keeping most wizards and witches from seeing his true appearance. He also seemed weary of the deluge of questions he was receiving in regards to his new look. His raven-colored hair had green tips, and was styled to spike out in all directions. He sported silver loops, with balls, of various gauges in his eyebrow, lip, and ear cartilage. There was a silver chain choker around his neck. This, together with the black kohl around his eyes, made him look like an exotic bird amongst his housemates.

The boy in question turned to look at him suddenly, emerald eyes locking with silver, as though he'd felt Draco's gaze. Maybe they were just used to taking each other's measure whenever they found themselves in the same room. Potter watched him carefully, weighing, and then had the nerve to let his lips twitch in the barest of smiles. This was new.

Draco instinctively sneered and turned away, pleased that, once again, he hadn't allowed the slightest hint of his thoughts to show. When he dared to look again, Potter had turned back to his friends, but his laughter at Finnigan's joke was hollow.

Of course, while all this was happening, Draco was holding court over the Slytherins with his usual icy practice and ease. A Malfoy must know how to multitask, after all. He sat in his usual spot, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle, with Pansy and Blaise across from him. The rest of the Slytherins ranged in order of descending rank around them. They regaled him with stories about their holidays, and he flawlessly reasserted his position as Prince.

"I just love your hair this year, Drakey," Pansy simpered, reaching across the table to touch the loose, platinum locks.

She started to, anyway, until he treated her to the full force of his Malfoy glare, effectively freezing her in place. Quickly, she withdrew her hand, suddenly realizing how unseemly she'd been acting in public. Draco's eyes were cold and unforgiving.

"Did you forget your manners over the holiday, Parkinson?" he questioned archly.

She winced. "Of course not, Draco."

He nodded curtly, allowing the tension to drain from his features, and conversation at the table started up again.

Draco liked to roam the halls of Hogwarts when he couldn't sleep. The older he got, the more intimate he became with that elusive plague called Insomnia. His life had been much easier back when he was an eleven-year-old boy just itching for the chance to make his father proud. He'd handled his Hogwarts career in perfect keeping with Lucius' impossible standards, save only for the fact that Potter always beat him to the Snitch.

But war was upon them, and the more he learned about how certain political ideals played out in practice, the more he questioned his loyalty to the cause. He might be a superior, prejudiced pure-blood, but he didn't think he could ever be a murderer.

This realization proved to Draco that, despite patterning his entire life up 'til now in Lucius' image, he'd never live up to his expectations. Which led to his present, unhealthy relationship with sleep. Luckily, he was Head Boy, so no one would question him for being out after curfew. On nights such as this, when he was out wandering because sleep had eluded him, he didn't seek out wayward students to punish for breaking the rules. Instead, he allowed Hogwarts to take him where she would.

Tonight, she seemed to be leading him down, down, down, through underground passageways that he'd never seen before. Somehow he doubted even Filch extended his patrols down here, and he wondered why the castle was showing him this seemingly secret wing. 'Maybe not so secret after all,' he mused, as he heard a faint plucking of guitar strings nearby.

He'd planned on avoiding contact with other students tonight, but Hogwarts seemed to want him to find the mysterious guitar player. As he followed the sound, he realized it was an acoustic, played seemingly effortlessly by skilled hands. He was intrigued in spite of himself. Finding the abandoned classroom that the music emanated from, Draco cautiously peeked in, blinking at the light cast by _**Lumos**_** from someone's wand.**

When his eyes had adjusted, he saw a figure, seated cross-legged against the wall on his robes. He was wearing faded, low-riding jeans and a tight, black t-shirt that revealed Muggle tattoos on his arms. The green-tipped, raven hair gave away his identity immediately. Draco was about to speak, when Potter's random plucking coalesced into the opening bars of a song, and he froze, listening. The chords were haunting and lovely.

Then, the Boy Who Lived started to sing, and the Slytherin Prince was paralyzed, chills chasing themselves up and down his spine as he listened.

_**"Threw you the obvious, and you flew with it on your back  
A name in your recollection, down among a million, say:  
Difficult not to feel a little bit disappointed, passed over.  
When I look right through, see you naked but oblivious  
And you don't see me..."**_****

Potter had a lovely voice, soft and edgy. By the way his mouth caressed each word and his fingers caressed each chord, it was clear that the song touched him deeply. His beautiful green eyes were filled with such longing that Draco's heart clenched. Any urge he might've had to take this newfound vulnerability in his hands and crush it was nullified by the need to hear more, the need to work out the cause for Potter's elemental sorrow.

_**"But I threw you the obvious, just to see if there's more behind the  
Eyes of a fallen angel, eyes of a tragedy.  
Here I am expecting just a little bit too much from the wounded  
But I see, see through it all, see through, see you..."**_****

Draco was caught up in a melancholy web of sound much greater than himself. He felt like he was being told something important, but Potter hadn't given any indication that his presence was noticed. Maybe anyone that witnessed this would've felt the same way. This was the real Harry Potter, not the Boy Who Lived. It was a frightening concept that he now had a reason to separate the two in his mind. Potter continued on, seemingly unaware that he had an audience.

_**"'Cause I threw you the obvious, to see what occurs behind the  
Eyes of a fallen angel, eyes of a tragedy  
Oh well, oh well. Apparently nothing. Apparently nothing at all."  
You don't, you don't see me…  
You don't see me at all."**_****

Draco was absolutely floored. As the beautiful, eerie song ended, he was suddenly transported back to their confrontation earlier that evening. Hadn't Potter said the last line of the song to him? _**'You don't see me at all.'**_** Yes, that's exactly what he'd said. Did he say it on purpose? Was he playing this song because it reminded him of Draco? But why? He remembered Potter's tentative smile, and his own automatic sneer in return.**

"Are you going to come in, or just stand there?" 

The question shocked Draco from his reverie. Potter still hadn't looked at him, but clearly he'd been caught. Almost against his will, he stepped further into the room to get a better look at his supposed nemesis. The raven-haired wizard met his eyes, and didn't seem surprised at who he found standing before him. 

"That song…" Draco stammered, absolutely hating himself for doing something so plebian as stammering, but completely unable to sort out his whirlwind of thoughts.

Harry smiled a little. "'3 Libras,'" he said. "It's by a Muggle band called A Perfect Circle." When Draco just kept staring at him, he added, "Sounds much better when they perform it. There's a full band, and strings. Plus Maynard Keenan's voice is bloody incredible."

"It's beautiful," Draco confessed before he could stop himself. "I didn't know you could play the guitar."

Harry fiddled with the pic in his fingers. "No one here does," he replied equably, and then asked, "Do you play an instrument?"

"Piano." Potter nodded as though that answer made perfect sense to him.

"How'd you wind up all the way down here?" Harry asked curiously after a moment of protracted silence. He watched Draco intently as though trying to fit together the pieces of a puzzle. When he was caught, a faint, pink blush colored his cheeks.

Draco was about to smirk, having regained a bit of his composure, when he caught sight of that damning blush. "The sodding castle brought me," he revealed finally, hoping his own face didn't betray him and grow pink.

"Figures," Harry chuckled, and then, "Insomnia, or having a bit too much fun being Head Boy?"

"Insomnia," the Slytherin replied shortly, feeling winded by their oddly pleasant conversation. "You?"

"Well, I'm certainly not Head Boy," the raven-haired wizard drawled.

Draco's lips twitched in spite of himself. "Insomnia for two, then," he announced grandly, as though ordering from a menu. "Why can't Perfect Potter fall asleep?" he questioned, raising a brow at his nemesis.

A slight flinch was the only indication that his moniker had gotten under the Gryffindor's skin. "It's not so much that I can't fall asleep, it's more that I'm afraid to," Harry offered vaguely.

"Why is that?" he questioned, floored that Harry Potter was admitting fear to Draco Malfoy.

Harry sighed wearily, and said, "Nightmares." Absently, he rubbed at his scar.

"Nightmares?" Draco repeated, his smirk once again trumped by the expression on Potter's face. Only this time it was bone-deep distress rather than the earth-shattering blush of just moments ago. Draco felt a sinister sense of foreboding.

Emerald eyes solemnly met silvery-gray. "Usually from Tom."

The Slytherin was perplexed. "Tom?" he repeated, wondering why Potter would assume he knew what he meant.

"Tom Riddle," Harry elaborated, and at Draco's continued confusion, he let out a jagged, bitter laugh. "Also known as He Who Must Not Be Named, You Know Who, and Lord Voldemort. As in, the psychotic, half-blooded, racial supremacist that's got me at the top of his hit list?"

Draco paused to process this, unable to fully suppress his shiver. "I didn't know his name was Tom Riddle." Then it hit him. "And what do you mean by _**half-blooded**_**?" he demanded, fixing Potter with his patented Malfoy glare.**

"It's pretty self explanatory," Harry replied, seeming impervious to his threatening gaze. "Tom Marvolo Riddle, son of one pure-blooded witch and one Muggle, who, it turned out, just couldn't handle the wacky world of magic and abandoned them. She died, and Tom grew up in the Muggle foster care system until he got his Hogwarts letter."

Draco felt his newly regained self-control crumble from the inside. Surely, Potter was messing with him. He pinned his nemesis with his eyes, demanding to know the truth. Harry just stared back calmly, no hint of deception in his gaze. There was no reason for him to lie, anyway, since Draco could easily check his claims. His carefully orchestrated world began to shatter.

"Oh Merlin," he exhaled softly, backing into the wall behind him and sliding down to the floor. Then he began to laugh, a stilted, terrible sound. "He's the most powerful Dark Lord of our time, he's got pure-blooded witches and wizards worldwide kissing the hem of his robes, and he's a sodding _**half-blood**_**?"**

Harry watched his nemesis with a mixture of amusement and concern. "He's not the first supremacist that's tried to create a perfect race he can't be part of." He paused thoughtfully. "Any chance he'll go mad and shoot himself with a handgun?" At Draco's incredulous look, he added, "Sorry. Muggle megalomaniac."

Draco eyed Potter's scar with morbid fascination, suddenly understanding the implications. "The Dark Lord sends you nightmares?"

Harry nodded, running a loving hand over the body of his guitar for comfort. "Mostly of our past encounters, but sometimes he sends images of what he's doing." His eyes met Draco's. "Or who he's torturing."

Running a hand through his silky locks, Draco tried to pull himself back together. "So yours is more of a selective Insomnia."

"Mmm," he agreed. "What about you?"

The Slytherin Prince winced, still hopelessly off balance from the course his night of wandering had taken. "Not so selective," he murmured.

Harry's expression as he watched him was intense. "Deep thoughts?" he asked finally.

Draco came to the sudden, and shocking, revelation that he didn't feel alive unless those emerald eyes were burning into his flesh. "Politics," he conceded.

Harry's "Oh" was weighty. 

He studied the raven-haired wizard, mesmerized by the way the wand-light flickered and danced across his face, and wondering just when up had begun to mean down. "I haven't worked out whom to vote for," he revealed. His voice was low, but he could tell by the slight widening of the Gryffindor's eyes that he'd heard.

Harry trapped him easily in his gaze, and after a long, tension-filled moment, he murmured, "You don't look much like Lucius." His hand twitched like he was suppressing the urge to touch the pale face that he was currently caressing with his eyes.

Instead of answering directly, Draco whispered, "Everything will change when we graduate."

Harry nodded seriously, seeming to understand the implications. "What happens when the bubble bursts?"

"I don't know." All Draco did know, and with perfect clarity in that moment, was that he didn't want to lose _**this**_**.**

Harry sighed. "It'd be nice not to know. My course is set." His voice was dark and defeated, and Draco tasted ashes.

"Nothing's ever set in stone," he murmured, feeling desperate to hear Harry laugh wryly and agree. He didn't.

"Some things are." 

Draco saw the truth of Harry's fate in his emerald eyes. They sat in subdued silence, listening to the night sounds of the castle. Finally, Draco stood, straightened his robes and prepared to leave.

"Later, Harry," he offered hopefully from the entryway of the classroom.

"Night, Draco." After a pause, "Good luck."

As Draco moved away down the corridor, he could hear the gentle plucking of Harry's fingers picking out the chords to a new song. It sounded like Death.


End file.
